The present invention relates to a clamp for fastening nipples to paper nursing bottles.
Most babies or young children are fed with edible fluids or suspensions, such as milk prepared by suspending commercial milk powder, by means of conventional nursing bottles made from plastic or glass, which are even useful for those preferring to feed maternal milk. Generally, each baby or young child needs several nursing bottles for desired fluids, such as milk, water, juices, nutrients supplemented flours and the suspension of medicines. Every time conventional nursing bottles have been used for feeding babies or young children, they should be subjected to a series of processes before reuse:washing, sterilizing or boiling and drying. Therefore, the multiplicity of the conventional nursing bottles causes inconvenience and additional burdens on parents. The increase in numbers of available nursing bottles makes such troubles manifest when the parents go out with their babies or young children, as it is difficult to treat used conventional nursing bottles. Accordingly, conventional nursing bottles are replaced gradually by fashionable paper nursing bottles fabricated from paper, hereinafter referred to as paper nursing bottle.
Each paper nursing bottle has an opening. Firstly, a nipple is mounted on an annular rigid neck. Then, the annular rigid neck is inserted into the paper nursing bottle. After this, a clamp is provided about the paper nursing bottle. Accordingly, the paper nursing bottle is firmly pressed against the annular rigid neck by means of the clamp.
A typical clamp for fastening the neck to the paper nursing bottle, for example, is a ring which generally has two pivotally connected half rings. Each half ring has a free end with a buckle portion formed thereon. When a user intends to engage the free ends of the half rings for fastening the annular rigid neck to the paper nursing bottle, firstly he/she must place an annular rigid neck, on which a nipple is mounted, in the opening of the paper nursing bottle and fix one of the half rings to the paper nursing bottle with one hand, and with the other hand, engage the free ends by overlapping the buckles and then use a belt for coupling the overlapped buckles. Alternatively, the tail of the belt coupling the overlapped buckles may be further fixed by a device of a hook means or a tongue-and-eyelet means.
The paper nursing bottle as described above such overcomes the aforementioned problems concerning the conventional nursing bottle, however, it inherently has at least two disadvantages. First, it requires skill and experience for coupling the belt about the buckles as the belt is separate from the clamp buckles. It is inconvenient for new users or even skilled users to use the conventional clamp in urgent conditions. Second, even skilled users tend to use both hands thereof in handling the conventional clamp means. Frequently, a user may embrace a crying baby or pull a mischievous young child with a hand and use his/her remaining hand for handling the conventional clamp. Therefore, it is very difficult to engage the half rings with each other and further fasten the annular rigid neck to the paper nursing bottle if the user needs to control various conditions simultaneously.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a clamp to avoid and overcome the aforementioned problems.